In the United States at the end of November we celebrate Thanksgiving, and Canada and other countries have similar days where people gather with family and friends to give thanks for everything they have. In our traditions, it usually involves eating lots of turkey with a variety of awesome side dishes! So what does this have to do with interviewing or interrogations?

As I mentioned, the tradition in the United States for Thanksgiving often involves eating a beautifully roasted turkey. As an investigator in law enforcement, or even other segments within the investigative world, you will come across and have to interview some “turkeys”. I may have just dated myself with that term, but if you grew up in the 1960’s or 1970’s, you know what I mean! A turkey was a slang word for a person who was just not cool, and the Urban Dictionary defines a turkey as; “a loser, an uncoordinated, inept, clumsy fool, a person who is not in with current culture and slang or is just generally uncool.”

The purpose of this post is to remind you that if you ever interview a turkey, make sure you don’t treat him or her as a turkey! That goes for anyone else you interview who may be different than you and who may not fit in with your culture, whether it is a person of lower socioeconomic status, a homeless drug addict, an abusive father, an irate employee or coworker, a smug gang member, a condescending doctor or an arrogant attorney. Turkeys come in all shapes, sizes, colors and classes, and I am sure you know a few of them!

The point here is that everyone wants to feel valued and to be treated with respect, even turkeys. Treating everyone with respect is a great way to help build rapport and set a strong foundation for an effective interview. It is likely to seed the subconscious desire for reciprocity as well, so if they are acting like a turkey but you treat them with respect, they may mirror your behavior and demeanor and start being more respectful as well. With rapport comes control of the interview. Treating people with respect is an element of developing rapport.

I am thankful that you took the time to read this, and I would be grateful if you also share this post with others as well, so click the Twitter and/or Facebook link below to share!

Some people say it is often better to be lucky than good. My opinion is, let's leave that to golf and NOT when conducting investigative interviews or criminal interrogations! A true professional, someone who needs to gather reliable facts and information from other people, will prepare, train and hone their skills throughout their careers. In my mind, and in the mind of those with the same philosophy of training, "luck" favors people who have invested the time and money in themselves, who have prepared and who have trained and who have honed their skills. Another thing I hear often is that you can't mix business with pleasure. Again, I disagree. The business of training is a serious thing. However, if you engage the right people in the right environment you can make the training not only valuable and effective, but also FUN! Case in point is The Lie Boat training cruise which has 18 hours of intense training with like-minded professionals on a cruise ship, which in 2016 is docking on the Island of Bermuda! Now THAT is combining business with pleasure. I hope to see you improving and honing your skills on board The Lie Boat in 2016!

I have seen a lot of "body language experts" market themselves very effectively within the media. They are highly paid consultants who train companies and organizations, conduct keynote speeches and dazzle people at sales conferences, and even train agents within the federal alphabet soup (FBI, CIA, DOD, DHS, etc...). But as it turns out, many of them may be more experts on marketing than on body language. For me, a true expert should be someone who has done what they are teaching, not simply studied or read about it and reorganized the material into their own courses. I know that most dictionaries define an expert as "a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area." My belief is that within the definition of expert the "or" should be change to "and", and that their skill should be tested in the real world, with real people and with real lives and consequences on the line. When hiring someone as a consultant or trainer for your company or agency, or if you bring them in for a keynote presentation, make sure they have the background of doing what they plan on teaching or assisting you with if you want real results.

If you conduct investigationsand interviews, and have to make assessments on the veracity of the information you get from people, block out your schedule for April 10th - 15th, 2016 and join like-minded professionals on The Lie Boat!

The Lie Boat! is a professional training program focused on improving the investigative interviewing and assessment skills of people like you...people who conduct interviews and interrogations for a living and need to get it right!

The Lie Boat! course is held on a cruise ship...this time it's going from Baltimore, MD to Bermuda, and will include 18 hours of intense training...balanced by 24 hours of free time in Bermuda and all the evening fun and excitement on the cruise ship! The courses for this training cruise are:

Investigators seem to be looking for the silver bullet for detecting deception; an instrument, contraption or tool that can distinguish between deception and truthfulness in people. Investigators need to stop looking for a "tool" and focus on "training." A properly trained interviewer is the best defense in preventing all the negative impact that comes when someone effectively lies during an investigation, whether that is in the context of a police interrogation, corporate investigation or military intelligence operation. Recent academic and field studies have demonstrated that training in ACID, which is an acronym for Assessment Criteria Indicative of Deception, significantly increased a person's ability to assess the credibility during interviews. I am excited to have Kevin Colwell teaching the ACID technique on The Lie Boat training cruise, which is scheduled for April 2016! Click the link below for more information about ACID and The Lie Boat!

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Our primary purpose is to enhance the investigator's ability to develop rapport, facilitate communication, extract more accurate information, detect deception and obtain the TRUTH from every investigative inquiry.